April 27, 2011

Recent WFMU New Bin faves

Brausepöter - Bundeswehr (Wild Isle) This 7" captures a wild German trio out of the small town of Rietberg who became a house band in one of that country's first new wave clubs. After gigging with such luminaries at the Abwarts and Einsturzende Neubauten, they fell in with the Zick Zack label for a proper studio session they felt may not have been so representative of their real sound. Hence this 7" single culled from a TV appearance (below), a wild slice of punk scabbery with a vibe of what a male Kleenex fresh out of the Beat Club might resemble. (Brian Turner)

AG Davis / Jamison Williams - May 6, 1937 (Skrot Up) Surprised to see so many people in online reviews getting their dander up over this one; Florida electronics and sax punctuated by total bladder-burst approach and Jaap Blonk-esque vocalizations to scare the wildlife off for the immediate radius; granted this is the kind of thing that is tough to swallow in longform, but on a 7" single it rules. Playing it on the air got some fists in the air but also a couple of 'WHY' emails. Sort of a flashback to the time a guy literally threatened to come down and punch my lights out for playing a Peeeseye 7" that boiled down a singular 3 minute crystalline nugget of ugliness.I guess part of the hellride is knowing it would be over soon (but then again, listeners can't see a 45 spinning on the turntable so...) Side B's high-pitch electronic squall I usually refrain from because I personally know some dogs that listen to the radio show, so for now we have the audio to side A here. (Brian Turner)

Various - New Weird Australia: We Are After All Here (NWA) I'm not a "morning person." When I have to be up at some ungodly hour, my usual laidback demeanor is thrown by the wayside and I'm fussy about anything and everything. What I'm in the mood to eat (or not eat), exactly how much coffee I need to imbibe to maintain a proper wakeful balance, and what music I want to listen to are all life and death questions. Choosing incorrectly will result in dire mental and emotional consequences that could last the entire day. My body (really, my entire being) is in absolute revolt for at least a few hours following an undesirable wake-up call, and NOTHING must piss it off. This is why I can preach the gospel of the New Weird Australia compilation series. Anytime I'm up at an ungodly hour and feeling angsty or finicky as hell, these comps hit the spot. Even when I've managed to upset the caffeine balance. The latest release from NWA is a collection of dreamy, droney, hazy, loping and lo-fi compositions, many with just a touch of haunted electronics. Take the edge off any morning: download the entire compilation here on the Free Music Archive, and thank your weird Australian brethren for helping you push past those early hours. More NWA goodies here. (Liz Berg)

Shingles - White Out (905 Tapes) + Mysteres du Serpent - Mondo Neptune (Baked Tapes) A new pair of ethereal noise cassettes from Grasshopper's Jesse DeRosa and Telecult Powers' Witchbeam offer different but complementary passageways into faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar out zones that are as deep as they are musically substantial, a rare quality in the cassette underground. As Shingles, DeRosa--one-half of the trumpet duo Grasshopper--layers up an EVI, the same kind of bending sci-fi woodwind Marshall Allen has been blowing never-often-enough with the Sun Ra Arkestra for many years. Though the landscape threatens to blossom into New Age neon throughout the side-long "NIght Beach," there are enough moving parts in the melodies to make momentum, not to mention gorgeous, shifting colors. Cult-knowledge researcher Witchbeam, who decamped from Brooklyn to Louisiana last year, has been jamming at his local voodoo temple. This is apparently not a metaphor. In which case, the resultant Mondo Neptune cassette (issued by DeRosa's Baked Tapes) is the melding of two equally right-on traditions: the bedroom synth-builder and authentic American folk music, in a way that is totally uncorny. In fact, it's outright heavy: wild undulations of resonant homemade noise, swamp ambience of frogs and cicadas, and sometimes distorted drummers, kicking out spare and hypnotic rhythms. And if it is a metaphor, it's still awesome Some Soundcloud here. Shingles: "Bloodfuel" (MP3): (Jesse Jarnow)

The Alps - Easy Action (Mexican Summer) If there's not a random French/German avant-prog/folk band-name generator on the intenet by now, there should be. Google indicates that there isn't, so there's no way to use it to come up with a bunch of reference points to describe The Alps' Easy Action And though the name sounds like it came from a Southern boogie rock .cgi script of its own, this epilogue to last year's Le Voyage sounds (for much of its second half) like a mellow star-field in between journey legs. Earlier, when the band mixes swirling atmosphere with precise fingerpicked structures ("For Isabel") the music is at its most implacable mix of earthy and cosmic and really kinda perfect. Audio: "For Isabel": (Jesse Jarnow)

3 Leafs - Eat the Earth (No Label) Contrary to what a certain McSweeney's list has to say about my taste in classic rock music, I don't actually have any failed stereo/barbecue hybrids in my garage. But I do love that Pink Floyd, and not just the Syd stuff! Ummagumma, Live at Pompeii - I can live in these places. I think 3 Leafs lives in these places. Based in San Francisco and sporting members of such FMU faves as Citay, Six Eye Columbia, DJ Female Convict Scorpion and The Fresh & Onlys, 3 Leafs get their psychedelic nod on in a way that would vibe very familiarly to your average millenia-dead volcano mummy. Their latest self-released CD "Eat The Earth", reportedly recorded while all members were shrooming, features 4 long pieces of structured improvisation on guitars, synths, percussion, fx (delay pedals in particular), and some wordless vocals. The evolution of each track is based more on texture than intensity, where ideas pointillistically leap into the mix and fall off. The centerpiece "We Eat the Earth" is a 13 minute swirl of birdcalls and synth arguments over a methodical bass loop and a minor key organ swell; "Puppies on Parade" starts with a marimba-like figure right out of Carl Orff's "Musica Poetica", before the exceedingly kraut drums push it all into another synth blissout; and opening and closing cuts "Fahren Bei Tag" ("Driving by Day") and "Fahren Bei Nacht" ("Driving by Night") make explicit their allegiance to their 70s German forbears, while still quite clearly sharpening an axe for Eugene. 3 Leafs have generously made this entire album, plus other tracks, available on their SoundCloud page.(Scott Williams)

Peter Evans Quintet - Ghosts (More Is More) Peter Evans is the quintessential modern polyglot musician, comfortable playing baroque music, traditional jazz, solo explorations of the trumpet's innards, or cracking skulls in a free for all with Weasel Walter and Mary Halvorson. The music Peter makes with his own quartet or, in this case, quintet, is rooted in traditional jazz but is seriously frayed at the edges, with pushed tempos, swaths of noise and crust, and compositional subterfuge. The ballads are haunted by, yes, ghosts. Sam Pluta?s live processed electronics add a surrealist, almost depraved, element. I recall in the back of my mind some book, I think it was Douglas Copeland's Girlfriend in a Coma maybe?, in which the characters, healthy people, just started to drop limbs, you know, just kind of unravel and disintegrate into piles of indistinguishable plasma. This music is exciting like that. Audio: "The Big Crunch" (Scott McDowell)

The Paparazzi - Rococo (Serious Business) I first heard the Paparazzi song "The Rococo Tape" last year on one of the great Ampeater Free Music Archive compilations, and it was one of my favorite pop songs of 2010, packing a ton of unconventionally hook-y ideas into less than two minutes. I didn't know much about the group at the time, but Doug Gillard knew I'd played this song on WFMU before, and he plays with Erik Paparazzi himself in Bambi Kino, so they brought some copies of this Serious Business Records release when they played live on Joe Belock's show earlier this month. Turns out Erik Paparazzi originally recorded this album way back in 2003/2004, but didn't finish it until last year. Maybe because he's devoted more time to his other projects (like backing up Cat Power) or maybe it's because -- even though the album has a real breezy organic lofi feel -- a lot of compositional craft seems to've gone into these nine tracks. Reminds me at various times of Big Star, Julian Lynch, some displaced Elephant 6...I hope we'll soon hear more from The Paparazzi! (Jason Sigal)